part1 · 020-ep20

Episode 20: The Stairway Down

The next day. Ren woke earlier than usual.

He made fire and finished a simple meal. Checked his water. Took up his spear.

"Today, let's see how much farther I can go."

His exploring up to yesterday had left places still unchecked. Ren set out, map in hand.

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He went on for a while. There were signs of monsters.

But with all the fighting he'd done, he'd learned to advance while avoiding the dangerous places. Passing through the shadows of rocks, threading narrow passages.

And—

Ren stopped.

"...Huh?"

Up ahead, a strange space opened out. At the edge of the wall, something that looked man-made.

Ren approached carefully.

"...Stairs?"

There, a staircase led down. It didn't look like something formed by nature. Step after step, uniformly shaped.

Ren stood before the stairs.

"They go... down."

He gazed at them for a while. In the dungeon as he'd known it, there had been no place like this.

No.

To be exact—

maybe he simply hadn't known about it until now.

Ren stared past the stairs. Darkness went on and on. He didn't know what was down there. He didn't know how deep it went, either.

Even so, Ren thought.

"...I want to see what's down there."

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But Ren didn't descend right away. First, he checked the area.

Around the stairs were signs of monsters. Claw marks. Footprints. And old bones.

"...Monsters pass through here."

Ren thought for a moment.

Which meant—

beyond these stairs, the odds were high that there were monsters, too.

"I'll hold off today."

Ren marked the stairs on his map. And confirmed the route leading to them, too. So he'd remember the way back.

"From here... I can get back."

Ren decided to return to his bed for now.

Tomorrow. He would prepare extra food and water, and then descend these stairs.

That was what he decided.

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Back at his bed, Ren spread out the map. He looked at the location of the newly found stairs.

"...What's down there, I wonder?"

Places he'd never known. Monsters he'd never seen. And a world continuing even farther down.

His heart beating just a little faster, Ren marked the stairs on the map.

Tomorrow, he would go beyond.

That decided, Ren passed the night quietly before the fire.